COMMON HARRIER. 30J) 



the family. The nest, which is composed of sticks, 

 with some dry grass, or of the latter solely, is placed 

 at the foot of a furze bush, or among heath, or some- 

 times on broken craggy ground. Sir William Jar- 

 dine, in his edition of Wilson's American Ornitho- 

 logy (vol. iii. p. 392), has appended a note to the 

 description of this species, part of which I here tran- 

 scribe, as forming a valuable addition to its history. 

 " In a country possessing a considerable proportion of 

 plain and mountain, where I have had the greatest op- 

 portunities of attending to them, they always retire, at 

 the commencement of the breeding season, to the wild- 

 est hills, and during this time not one individual will 

 be found in the low country. For several days pre- 

 vious to commencing their nest, the male and female 

 are seen soaring about, as if in search of, or examining, 

 a proper situation, are very noisy, and toy and cuff 

 each other in the air. When the place is fixed, and 

 the nest completed, the female is left alone ; and when 

 hatching, will not suffer the male to visit the nest, but 

 on his approach rises and drives him with screams to a 

 distance I The nest is made very frequently in a heath 

 bush by the edge of some ravine, and is composed of 

 sticks, with a very slender lining. It is sometimes also 

 formed on one of those places called scarsy or where 

 there has been a rut on the side of a steep hill after a 

 mountain thunder-shower ; here little or no nest is 

 made, and the eggs are merely laid on the bare earth, 

 which has been scraped hollow. In a flat or level 

 country, some common is generally chosen, and the 

 nest is found in a whin or other scrubby bush, some- 

 times a little way from the ground, as has been re- 



